


The Dominion Web

by fresne



Series: Voyages of the Bakerstreet [11]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Alpha Sherlock Holmes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Blow Jobs, Dubious Consent, Omega John Watson, Other, That Dubiousness has nothing to do with going into heat, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-04
Packaged: 2019-06-21 23:48:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15569058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fresne/pseuds/fresne
Summary: Shortly after the Bakerstreet enters the Gamma quadrant, an interphasic anomaly has Sherlock thrown out of phase from his ship. Will the crew of the Bakerstreet be able to bring him back into phase before Dominion ships, who claim that area of space, force them to leave or destroy the Bakerstreet.





	1. Other POV

The Latinum Dream had been having minor breakdowns since they crossed through the wormhole into the Gamma quadrant, but Daimon Frenk had not crossed over into another quadrant to be put off by small difficulties. He could have made adequate profits in his uncle's cheese emporium. 

He was not in the Gamma quadrant to make adequate profits. He was there to make a Daimon's share of so much profit that he was placed on the rolls of the Great Entrepreneurs going all the way back to Gint himself.

But for the warp engine to disappear while they were traveling through an area of space rich in interphasic energy was more than a little breakdown.

"We should have waited until the Federation surveyed this route, or better yet not come at all," said his first officer, Abava, which was not at all like Abava, who was one of the most wonderfully greedy men Frenk had ever met. "It's too dangerous here."

Abrava should have been able to see the implications of interphasic energy. Frenk worked rapidly trying to reverse the cascade of the engine. But there was always lobes for a discussion of profits. "We need to study this effect. If we can learn how it's done, control it, think of how it could be used."

Abrava looked at him curiously. "To destroy an enemies engines."

"Smuggling!" said Frenk sharply. "What's wrong with you? Imagine suggesting destroying an enemies engines. We're not Klingons. Everyone can be a customer."

"All solids do look alike," said Abrava in a strangely high tone. Frenk turned around and Abrava didn't look a bit like Abrava. Frenk just had time to process that Abrava heading for an escape pod, which were not cheap, before whatever had affected the engine. Affected him. 

Frenk floated through the decks of his ship. Out of phase. Unable to hear and feel what he passed through. Although, at least he knew where the engine had gone. It was floating near him. As he floated into the void and his oxygen ran out, he regretted that he'd skimped on the hull of his ship and used tritanio-lite from his cousin Pino, instead of actual tritanium.

He did live long enough before he ran out of breathable air to see the Latinum Dream's energy matrix, and the rest of the Latinum Dream, explode.


	2. John POV

John sat next to Sherlock on the bridge as they went through the wormhole. A perfect stop to see both the Bellisarius and the Al-Haytham go through, which was quite a sight. Like a flower unfurling. As long as it wasn't a Venus Flytrap, they were good.

One moment they were in the Alpha quadrant, the next a white vortex opened up in front of them like curtain rising on the best show of all.

They sailed into a swirl of white. No, that was wrong. The wormhole was all the colors. It was his first taste of ice cream. His last sip of plomeek soup. It was Mummy scooping him up after he played one of murdered princes in Richard the III while Mum cackled her way through being old crookback. It was being an old man, sitting content with his hand in Sherlock's while a thousand or so giant bees buzzed around them.

At the edges of his consciousness, he could feel something vast and slippery, like the vitreous eyes of gods watching.

Then they were through and the sensory impressions were gone.

John was in Starfleet. Starfleet's job was to explore. He put together a survey – with some very annoying corrections from Sherlock – for the crew on what they'd observed while going through the wormhole. Meanwhile the Bakerstreet got to the work of surveying every little bit of space between the wormhole and the route the Ferengi ship, the Latinum Dream, had taken to the M class planet 128.

John discussed the results of the survey with the command staff before preparing to tight beam it to the relay buoy next to the wormhole. "Only three individuals on the ship reported the sensation of being watched while going through the wormhole."

Hudson sipped her tea. "It was a form of consciousness completely unlike anything I've ever sensed. Vast and…slippery."

"Yeah. All three individuals who sensed the entities used the term slippery to describe the sense of other beings. Each individual described experiencing temporal hallucinations," said John. "Myself, Hudson, and Hunter."

Sherlock rocked in his chair, dark curls falling over his forehead in a not at all distracting way. Especially not the one that looked like an inky upside down question mark on his long pale neck. Freshly cleaned. His natural scent curling gently out like a tease.

John attempted to regain the thread of his plot. Sherlock had read – and grammar checked – his report already.

"The higher the ESP rating, the more detailed the description. Hudson has the highest ESP rating among the crew, as an actual telepath. I have a low latent rating, and Hunter, when tested, was off the charts for latent abilities, which is typical for skilled navigators."

Hunter inclined her head over her coffee and made a parade queen wave.

"Interestingly, Stonn and his son Sestre, as Vulcans, didn't report the same sensation, but their psionic abilities are stored in a different part of their cerebral cortex."

"Oh, this is exciting," said Moriarty, bouncing like a groundling. "My first mission in space and I'm already encountering unknown aliens. Not myself of course, not a bit of psionic ability in me. Not a drop. Bit of a dead zone really, all my people are, but still. Aliens. Exciting."

The ensign had been chatty enough on the way to DS9, but since then he'd been a chatterbox. John supposed it was a good sign that he'd opened up. He supposed. He shared a look with Sherlock.

Fine. Not a good sign.

Moriarty continued. "I've been monitoring the com systems, which it's my solemn duty as a Federation officer to do. I've triangulated the position of the planet that the Latinum Dream was planning on visiting and sent the information to Lieutenant Hunter."

"Adequate," said Sherlock, who was eyeing Yao.

"What is it?" Yao looked behind her.

"This is an excellent time to make some addition engine upgrades," said Sherlock.

For whatever reason, Plomeek soup, because once John thought of it, he had to make some, had given Sherlock an idea.

"But, we're an entire quadrant from home," protested Yao, looking like an actor who'd gone on stage only to find she was in the wrong play. "This is a tremendously bad idea."

Sherlock waved a hand, out beauty queening Hunter's wave by a factor of infinite. "It's nothing major. Changes to the titration formulas for the dilithium crystals."

"But standard operating procedures have those set at a fixed rate," interjected Moriarty. "Exciting!"

"Wrong SOPs written by personnel who've never tested an engine outside of a lab," said Sherlock. "My calculations show that we could get forty percent more efficiency."

Moriarty looked around the room. "And no one has a problem with this? Sirs?"

Yao looked over Sherlock's specs. "That might blow the dilithium core." A smile spread across her face. "Oh! If that works it'll reduce the rate we have to change out the filtration units. This is… brilliant. Unorthodox." 

They did get on a good bit better than Sherlock had with Hatherley.

Sherlock grinned at John, because that was exactly what he'd said Yao would say over dinner. "We can begin tomorrow."

Moriarty looked at them all wide eyed. "I'm so glad I drew the Bakerstreet. This is going to be such fun."

"You're irrelevant to this discussion," said Sherlock, turning his chair away from Moriarty. Although, really, someone had to explain to the ensign that with Augments on board, he needed to lay off the scented aftershave or deodorant or whatever it was he was using.

Technically John was also irrelevant to any discussion about engine changes, and he had duties to carry out and studies to do, but when all that was done, he did find himself find himself in engineering. He had no idea why. Maybe because Sherlock seemed to think he needed to babble at a John shaped object about what it was he was doing.  

He decided a good defense was a good offense and argued with Sherlock about the merits of Klingon Opera of all things, while Sherlock sprawled very nicely – very nicely – on his back under a workstation.

Yao said wryly. "I am capable of making that change."

"And I will do it better," said Sherlock, waving a metal thing. "Watson, you can't seriously expect me to find value in an art form where the audience throws rocks at the performers."

"Only if they really like the performance," said John. "And they're small rocks. Dad was finding pebbles in his Khaless costume for weeks. I loved it because it was so bloody. Kids are blood thirsty things."

Yao shouted something about a techy something. There was a flash of light and Sherlock disappeared. One moment, he was there. The next, he was gone.

John immediately got a tricorder and scanned the room. Nothing. There was no biological material, which would have been the case if Sherlock had been vaporized. No heat residue either. No cold residue. Nothing.

It was simply as if Sherlock had ceased to exist.

Very deep inside John, there was a very annoying – upsetting really – gibbering. Because the old hand he'd held had been Sherlock's, and he was not going to let wormhole aliens fuck with him. Their adventures did not end like this. Sherlock did not get to disappear in a flash of light. He didn't get to go until they'd had all the adventures they could possibly have and then some.

Yao called up to the bridge. Hudson ran a full scan on the ship. Still nothing.

John told the gibbering in no uncertain terms to shut it. 

Hudson and Yao said a great many things that required more physics than John had to understand, but it boiled down to Hudson thought this area of space was subject to periods of interphase, which had something something to do with antimatter.

Yao looked a bit shattered. Hudson said, "It's not your fault, dear." She touched her forehead, "Not that I'm prying. You have a very expressive face, if very dense mental barriers."

"No," said Yao. "The changes to our dilithium titration changed the frequency that antimatter enters the fusion initators." She rubbed the side of her head. "If the Commander hadn't been making those changes, the entire chamber would have gone interphase, which could have led to a cascade effect in the engine core."

"But what about Sh… the Commander." John felt that was the point really. The entire point. The complete and utter point.

Hudson took pity on John. "It's possible the Commander's still on the ship, but we just can't see him. He's out of phase with our reality." She looked around vaguely. "If that's the case, it's possible we could be able to reverse the interphase if we knew where on the ship he was. And if no warp bubbles disturb this area of subspace. Unfortunately, the best person to preform that sort of calculation would be Commander Holmes."

Yao said, "Don't worry, John. We'll find a way to get him back."

"But if the Commander is out of phase," said Moriarty, "then he probably fell through the floor of the ship and is floating around in space even now." He nodded slowly. Everything in his expression was sad and mournful, and John wouldn't have paid a credit for his performance. Utterly insincere. It was his eyes. They looked dead. Moriarty clutched at his own chest. "I wonder if he even has air. Heat. He probably died in seconds."

John did not tell Moriarty to sod off, but it was a near thing. A very near thing. Sherlock did not get to die this way. John said, "I don't know about the physics, but I can tell you that the Human nervous system does not respond well to interphasic energy." That was probably why he was misreading Moriarty's micro expressions.

As if on cue, because sod his life, Julian appeared in the engine room. "We've had seven separate crew members come into sickbay complaining of headaches, nausea, and exhibiting violent behavior. I've had to sedate them."

John snapped his fingers. Focused on Julian, because medicine was something he was training in. It was something he could contribute. "As I was saying interphasic energy is bad for the Human nervous system. The Andorians and the Vulcans won't be affected."

"I… let me confirm that." Julian narrowed his eyes, and got that sort of vague look he got when he was running a search in the medical database

"Yeah, the fun bit's the cure," said John, rubbing the back of his neck, because he needed to sell this. He needed them to know that he had a way to make it safe to stay right where they were until they could fix this. Even if it was a half arsed idea. "I only heard about it from some other pre-med students, and then looked it up because I thought they were having me on."

"Don't leave us in suspense," said Moriarty, leaning forward.

"The cure is to take Theragen diluted in distilled alcohol." If Sherlock was there, he'd have said that John's presentation lacked flourish, but he'd gotten himself interphased so he didn't get to have an opinion.

Julian said, eyes still vague, "Theragen is a Klingon nerve agent. It's lethal."

Since the other option was to leave the system, John was going to stick with the nerve agent. "Sure, if we take it long enough, it can build up, but I can put together a thoranic flush," which he'd fortunately just learned about during his last course, "Until then, we take it in small doses and if mixed with the right level of proof, it counteracts the effects."

"You want everyone in the crew to take a lethal drug, while simultaneously getting drunk and operating complex equipment to investigate interphasic energy," said Moriarty, his smile widening. "That's a spectacularly bad idea."

"It's safe." John tried to think what Sherlock would do. He went to the replicator. "I hear its best with scotch." Sherlock would order random scotch from a replicator and never mind that it wasn't real. "Computer, Islay twenty year, neat, and a vial of seven percent solution Theragen, 10cc." The replicator hummed and a glass of scotch appeared with a blue vial next to it.

"Or we could simply leave," said Moriarty. "Accept the Commander is gone. Who knows what other dastardly dangers the Gamma quadrant hold for us? We could hold a memorial for Commander Holmes. Put out flowers." He spread his hands. "We have to report this back to Starfleet. Won't anyone think of the children on board?"

Hudson said, "Dear, you are not helping."

"He's right," said Julian. "John that is. That will counter the effects of interphasic energy. Eva and Connor won't be affected, because of elasticity of their nervous systems at this phase in their development, but I can monitor them just in case."

"Thank you," said John, who was not about to let the Bakerstreet go anywhere until they got Sherlock back. He titrated the necessary three drops into the glass.

He toasted. "Here's to finding Sherlock." Because that was happening.


	3. Sherlock POV

Sherlock watched John down the glass. He could see John. He couldn't hear him. Couldn't hear any of them, but John was the one that mattered. Sight was the only sense that carried over. He was deaf, hypoesthesiatic, and anosmiatic to the world around him. Also ageusiatic. Although after licking the warp core it had occurred to him that he had no range of comparison.

Odd, because given who he was, his sense of taste was highly sensitive. It was why, for the most part, he preferred to avoid food that wasn't algae paste.

Unless John made it.

John knew how to cook food Sherlock would find palatable. That would curl into and not batter Sherlock's senses. 

He breathed in and there was no scent to the world. Not even John's scent made it through. The air was mildly metallic with a strong odor of Ferengi, which made sense given the parts of the Latinum Dream currently phased with him in this little bit of space.

He watched John's lips move. Thin. Tight. Stressed. Angry. He knew that he was insisting they would find Sherlock. The shape of his own name unmistakable from lips he'd so often watched.

He'd always considered his body mere transport, now it appeared merely to be transport. "John, I am right here!" Of course, John couldn't hear him. Hear him. Touch him.

Not that they touched.

Not that Sherlock wanted to be touched.

He realized that he was breathing in sharply. Lungfuls of air. Olfactory organs desperately trying to pull in a particle of John's scent. He made himself stop. There was no way to know how much oxygen had carried through with him.

Odd that unable to scent John's pheromones, he still found himself desiring to touch him. That instinct ought to have been entirely tied to an atavistic response omega scent signatures.

He reached out, as he so often longed to do. _Dry as a neglected baroque garden, hedge maze threadbare, longing for rain._ His hand slipped through John, who so much for his ESP, didn't even turn as Sherlock's fingers slid through his face.

Focus. Sherlock needed to focus.

If the ship moved, the results would catastrophic. He was fortunately not alone in this reality. He was surrounded by parts from the Dilithium Dream's engine had phase synced with him. Enough parts to construct a phase stabilizer. Unfortunately, because of the subatomic nature of the tritanium floors and walls, Sherlock could not walk through walls, but had to go through doors when a crew member went through. Then again, without it, he would have fallen through the floor into open space.

He felt as if he were falling. The floor beneath him did not feel real. The walls. He couldn't phase through them, but there was something wrong about them.

There was something wrong with him. Another non-touch of John's lips. Neither soft nor hard. Nothing. He resolved to work faster.


	4. John POV

Three hours and three glasses of nerve agented scotch in, and they still hadn't located Sherlock. John felt like an idiot. All the time he'd spent studying and the only solution he could come up with was to get the entire crew drunk. Staggering. Not thinking straight.

Crooked. Cook backed. Like old Richard III. No horse. No nephews. Stains on the trousers.

Hunter had located what remained of the Dilithium Dream in some sort of a bio-energy web that was simultaneously constricting and dissolving its components.

That was the only reason they hadn't identified it previously. They'd been searching for a ship and not a metal ball.

Hudson glared at a series of calculation through one eye. She'd started closing one eye around the time she'd consumed her medically prescribed third glass. "I don't… know how to…" she waved her hand back and forth, "stabilize the pure energy."

"You're going to keep trying though," said John clutching a glass of water. "You have to." They had to get Sherlock back. He didn't get to disappear like this. Someone so vibrant. Alive. Present. Not going to happen.

So, of course a triangular rainbow colored ship flew into local space, because sod his luck.

Moriarty said, "Lieutenant Command Hudson, didn't you say that it was important that no warp bubbles disturbed local space?"

John tried to remember if she had said that and quite frankly did not give a flying monkey. Not one.

"Just calibrate the universal translator so we can understand their hail," said Hudson tiredly with one eye closed.

Moriarty tapped some controls and a voice came from the communications station. "We are representatives of the Dominion. We claim this area of space. You must leave immediately or face the consequences."

Hudson hiccupped. "Ask them to give us an hour."

"Oh, I don't know if they will," said Moriarty, "they sound very cross." But he sent the message.

The reply was brief. "One hour. No more."

"Do you have a plan for the next hour?" asked John.

"No, idea. But when in doubt, stall." Hudson sighed. Rubbed her forehead.

John ambled into Sherlock's ready room, because it smelled like Sherlock.

John sat down in Sherlock's chair. Listlessly picked at the fabric of his uniform, when Sherlock appeared, a ghostly after image. "I've built a stabilizer. It has limited capacity. You need to," and disappeared.

John stumbled to his feet. "Sherlock! Sherlock!" Sherlock didn't reappear.

John's glass slid across the surface of the desk spreading a swath of dewy liquid on the surface. An insubstantial finger wrote, "Tell Hudson. Yao. SH"

John slapped his com. Then remembered he was in the next room. He stumbled to the door. "Sherlock just appeared." Hudson, Yao, and Moriarty came into the ready room with tricorders. Again, there was no sign of Sherlock.

"What did he say?" asked Yao. "How did he look? Was he healthy?"

John repeated what Sherlock had said.

Yao said, "That makes no sense. I should understand what he meant. But we… I should understand."

"It's probably just stress or the liquor," said Moriarty. "You hallucinated him. He wasn't really there. No one could make an interphase stabilizer out of a few engine parts." Moriarty grinned at him. "No one."

There was something about that statement that didn't quite work for John, but as he drank a glass of water, he couldn't quite parse what it was.

Course that was when the Dominion ship hailed them. Their sixty minutes were up.

"They are very punctual," said Hudson.

The Dominion ship's repeated their demand. "Your time is up. Leave this space, or suffer the consequences."

John squinted because now it looked like the monitor was showing two Dominion ships.

"That's because, hick, there are two, hick, ships," said Hudson. "With two ships disrupting this area of sub-space, I'm not sure how we can get him back."

"But I saw him," insisted John.

"A drunken hallucination," said Moriarty. "A sign that this area of space is too dangerous for the Federation."

The Dominion ships touched rainbow noses and began to weave a sort of energy web around them. "Oh, hick, dear," said Hudson. "We need to not let that web touch the ship. You saw what it did to the Latinum Dream."

"The Federation doesn’t have any technology like that," said Moriarty. "All the more reason to leave this quadrant alone. Although, I'm beginning to think it would be more interesting if you didn't." 

Hudson's glass tipped over from where it was on her arm of the command chair. A footprint appeared in the liquid spread out on the floor. "What does that mean?" she asked peering down.

The liquid was dashed back and forth. Words appeared in the liquid on the hard surface of the floor. "Wrong. Stay. Engineering. 12 o'clock."

"Does he want us to stay or go to engineering?" said Yao.

Engineering was underlined.

"That's clear enough," said John. "Let's go."

"But does he want to go at 12? Noon or Midnight?" said Yao. "Why was he so imprecise?"

"Let's just go," said Hudson wobbling to her feet.

They paraded into engineering. Nothing happened. Nothing on the sensors. Nothing. For maybe twenty hours or twenty seconds. John couldn't be sure.

A device appeared an inch above a control station and clattered to the surface. Yao rubbing her eyes. "I should… I should… I never would have thought of building um… that was too much liquor even for me..." She picked up the device, fiddled with it, and plugged it into a port on the side of the control station. "Tricky part is giving it just enough power to um…. Power… not enough to go… explode in my hand." She puffed out a breath. She looked around the room. "Now what. Wait until noon or midnight?"

John looked straight ahead. "It's not a when. It's a where. Fire straight in front of me." Hoped. Prayed to vitreous aliens and whatever god of theater might still be looking out for him. Yao fired.

Sherlock appeared in normal space, inches in front of John, with his arms crossed tightly across his chest. "That took far longer than it should have for you to figure out."

"We've had a lot to drink," hiccupped Hudson. "Damn. I thought I got over them." She tapped her com. "Hunter, be a dear, and get us out of the net before we all… die."

There was a shift in the engines and John should go to sickbay to start pulling together hangover cures, but didn't really want to let Sherlock out of his sight.

Sherlock sighed and steadied John. "Julian can take care of it," and took him to his quarters and tucked him into bed and left. Just left him there to sleep it off, which was sweet, and maybe he kissed John's forehead, but John probably was hallucinating.


	5. Sherlock POV

When John recovered enough, he insisted on cooking dinner for Sherlock despite the fact that it wasn't their night to dine and Sherlock was not hungry.

Certainly not for food.

He'd wrapped his arms around himself to prevent himself from doing something rash and stupid when he'd appeared in normal space. John's face had looked so happy to see him. Was happy to see him.

Sherlock lingered over the meal, long after John had finished what he had to eat. Long after every item on Sherlock's plate had been parsed. Sorted into piles and become mush.

John chattered. Picked up the plates to dematerialize them.

Sherlock couldn't help but look at the door to the room where John had claimed him once. If admittedly while under mood altering pollen. He very much wanted that to happen at that moment, but there was no way to ask in their current configuration. Shouldn't ask.

_Transport. Transport. Transport._

Excused himself before he could blurt it out anyway.

He was on his way to his quarters when he was alerted the John was headed to the holodeck. He just had time to turn on his blind before John entered. The holodeck transformed into a sitting room with a view of a lighthouse and windows that opened on waves crashing on a rocky shore. John came in wearing a suit similar to the one he'd worn to the party on DS9, but with a black arm band around his right arm.

Sherlock's earbud murmured at a sub-voto frequency that John could not hear, "Ghost and Mr. Muir. Nineteenth century. Mr. Muir is visited by the ghost of his recently deceased lover, Captain Holmes, with whom he was secretly in a forbidden homosexual relationship. With some elements of the movie 'Ghost'. Angst rating seven."

The angst rating was irrelevant. Sherlock had observed thirty-four scenarios. For this type of scenario, the simulated version of himself would kiss John between two to five minutes. Manually stimulate John's genitals and finally engage in penetrative vaginal coitus, whose duration would be based on when John came.

Sherlock always found it a sort of torture to watch John engage in coitus with a simulacrum of himself. The more so because there were so many regions of John to touch. The more so having recently emerged from a state where he could touch nothing. He told himself that was the reason for his current state of agitation.

As was his own ritual by now, Sherlock stripped his uniform off and sat naked in a holographic chair.

There was no harm in stimulating himself while John did so. He did it to understand himself. No other reason. It did not indicate a break from the precept that his body was nothing more than transport.

As always, he took careful note of the room for clues about John's thoughts and preferences. This was all fine if it was for research.

Nineteenth century décor. A bone pipe was propped on the mantle next to some correspondence stabbed through with a dagger. There was a potter's wheel posed in a small alcove in front of a window seat overlooking the raging grey sea beyond.

A holographic visitor knocked at the door. Pastor White, who the ear bud informed him had not approved of Captain Holmes. Pastor White said, "I've come to offer condolences. Although given the nature of your renter, not that I wish to speak ill of the dead, but your greater loss may be in funds."

John looked out at the lighthouse and sighed.

Pastor White carried on, the ignorant clot, who failed to observe that John was in mourning. "Primarily, I came to see if you wished it to be known throughout the parish that you've a room to let and if you need help disposing of Holmes' things to the poor."

John said nothing.

White looked significantly at the empty tea pot on the shelf, but John made no offer to brew water, thankfully. John said, "No, I think I'll leave his room empty for a while. We had formed a sort of friendship, Captain Holmes and I, and I find that the solitude will do me well."

"Ah," said Pastor White. "Of course, not every tenant can be so kind as to pay rent and yet mostly be absent. Still, this is a seaside town. There may be another whaling captain willing to pay to have his worldly possessions stored between voyages."

John sighed again.

Really, the creature needed to leave. Sherlock did something he'd never done before. Murmured a command to the holodeck, which promptly threw the teapot at the door to fall in pieces the wood floor.

Pastor White shrieked. "What was that?"

"I… I don't know," said John with the sort of smile that said he thought he did know. Sherlock helpfully ordered more pottery flung about the room until White fled claiming, "Your home is haunted! Even in a watery grave, Captain Holmes is a blight." Sherlock had him trip as he stumbled out the door.

John looked around the room. "Sherlock, is that you?" He said ruefully. "You know those pots took hours to make." A lie. Everything was holographic.

Sherlock didn't answer.

The holodeck didn't answer either.

It seemed to Sherlock just then that this was a perfect scenario. One in which he could interact with John and yet remain separate from him. Improve upon John's simple algorithm. If based on stimuli, he might even add the code to the algorithm during the next scenario.

He changed the programmed scenario to indicate that he would be directing the activities of the ghost of Captain Holmes.

John whispered, "Sherlock, you weren't supposed to leave like that?"

This was clearly Sherlock's cue. Sherlock moved his right hand within his blind and across the room John shivered as a micron thin layer of hard light applied pressure on John's right shoulder. Fingers dragged up to brush behind his right ear. A puff of cool air that drew a visible response from John. Already a successful idea.

John looked around the room. "Sherlock?" He was clearly expecting a ghostly image behind him and was somewhat confused to find no one there. Sherlock moved his other hand to apply another brush of pressure to John's other shoulder. Slid them forward. John shivered. His mouth opened slightly to drag in a breath of air. Sherlock's pheromones if nothing else. Hard light wasn't a privacy shield. Although, Sherlock had begun integrating elements from the replicators months ago to explain the presence of his scent.

John removed his jacket to reveal a white shirt and red suspenders. He placed some clay on the potter's wheel and sat down on a small bench in front of it. He operated the foot lever to make it spin. Sherlock moved his hands and the hard light followed his motions. However, frequently, the holodeck did not understand what he meant by a gesture.

More alterations were called for. He reasoned that as long as he was not actually touching John it would be fine. Really, the important part was that John not see him, and that John enjoy himself. The holodeck could create micron thin layers of what John saw in the holodeck. It was the principle behind Sherlock's blind. He gave his instructions and stood up. Stepped out of the blind. Left it behind.

Rested his hands on John's shoulders. He could feel John's warmth, but not feel his skin. Hard light separated them. Still, he bent down to lay a kiss on the bend of John's shoulder. Where the marks were. A reminder to himself not to give into animal behavior.

_Lie._

He did it to scent John. As John could breathe Sherlock's scent, he could breathe in John's scent. Hear John's heart beating rapidly.

In the distance, waves crashed and a fog horn blew a lonely call. His hands smoothed over skin that he could not feel.

John breathed in deeply and groaned. Shifted forward on the small bench. Sherlock moved to sit behind him. His legs wrapped around John's hips. John's back warm against Sherlock's front, which earned another groan. 

John leaned back. "Sherlock, you weren't supposed to leave like that." Somehow, he was keeping up the concentration to keep the wheel spinning, but even if it was a hologram, the clay he was shaping would never be a pot. "You don't get to die like that."

Unexpectedly, he stood up and turned around. Sherlock stood with him knocking over the bench. John flailed at empty air, which was not empty. Which was occupied by Sherlock. Hard light made him invisible, not interphasic. Blows fell like rain. Like a storm at sea. Thudding hail on the shore. John kept saying, "You don't get to go like that, you fucking, you… you don’t get to."

Sherlock framed his hands around John's face. Warm. Separated by light. Sherlock whispered, "Even from the depths of the wide sea. From death itself. I'll always come back to you." Then to stop himself from saying anything else, he kissed John and came to a realization. Where his lips met John's, hard light ended.

He shouldn't.

He did.

Sherlock tasted what he most wanted to taste, and based on John's answering exploration, it was what he wanted as well.

_"Not from you." Came the whisper from his mind palace. Mycroft said, "He didn't come here for this."_

Sherlock ignored it. Simply stood for long moments. Hands framing. Tongue exploring. Breathe coming rapidly. John pulled him forward. The potter's wheel fell to the floor. They stumbled backwards into the window seat that overlooked the wild sea.

John sat in the seat, while Sherlock knelt between his legs. Unseen. Invisible. Stroking John's calves. His tender skin inside his thighs through a layer of wool and light.

John cursed under his breath and shoved off his suspenders. Plucked with clumsy fingers at the buttons of his trousers. Sherlock batted his hands away. John laughed. "Fine you do it." Leaned back in the seat, his legs splayed, his back slightly arched, while behind him the lighthouse light swung its light into the dark, the foghorn made its mournful call, and waves crashed into the rocks. Sherlock could have snapped the buttons, but after the sudden fury of the moment, he wanted to prolong what was happening. It was late at night. There were no later reservations for the holodeck. 

_"You can't control yourself," came Mummy's voice._

_"This is a tactical error," said First Father._

_"Your mind is damaged," said Mycroft._

He could stop. This wasn't rut. John was not in heat.

He ought to stop. 

He didn't.

He slid the first bone button through the fine wool. The button might be slick and smooth. The fine wool might be soft or prickly. Hard light kept him from feeling it. So it was all fine. He slipped the second button free. The third was the one that released the pressure over John's member. Which Sherlock had rarely gotten an adequate view of before. He undid two more buttons. John lifted his hips, an invitation, which Sherlock accepted. Hooked his fingers over the trouser and under pants and pulled all of it down to John's ankles. John groaned, "Fuck, I still have my shoes on."

Before Sherlock could bend down further, John pushed the left one off forcefully by applying his big toe to the back heel, and every toe on his left foot to free the right. Yanked off the clothes on the lower half of his body. Then stopped, because Sherlock, no longer touching him, was invisible. A micron away. He whispered, Sherlock had no idea why John was whispering, "I need to see you."

Tricky, but not impossible. Sherlock gave a sotta voiced instruction. What John saw was Sherlock, half transparent, glowing, in a nineteenth century whaling captain's clothes. What John saw was Sherlock kneeling between his legs begin an exploration of what had been hidden from him by heat and hormones and holograms. He scented John's groin, which smelled even more strongly of John than his neck had. What he saw was Sherlock's smile as he pulled away to explore John's bared feet. Pluck off socks to explore toes with delicate touches. Lips that tasted. The area behind John's knees was particularly responsive. The tender skin of his inner thigh. Delicious as Sherlock sucked on it hard enough to break the skin while John tangled his fingers in Sherlock's hair.

_All the while, Palace voices telling him that this was animalistic. Primitive._

Wonderfully primitive as he finally pulled back the flesh that hid the crown of John's member from him and wrapped his lips around the ruby red tip. The hologram barrier ending once again where his lips closed. John's fingers twisting and tugging at his hair as Sherlock moved further down to slide his lips over the salty folds of vaginal flesh below. Flicking his tongue to taste more. John shouted, "Sherlock!"

Sherlock looked up.

_John's blue eyes were almost black. Extreme Pupil dilation. Flushed cheeks. Rapid breathing. Fully hard member leaking a single bead on its tip._

 Sherlock didn't want to waste this opportunity and returned to suckle gently, tongue exploring, the rosy crown of John's member, while sliding his fingers into where his tongue had been below.

He judged his success by the escalating volume of John's cries. By how lovely John tasted. By exploring the veins and the tiny beads on the tip of John, while fingers tugged almost painfully on his hair. John made a louder shout, which was Sherlock's only warning as John came in his mouth in sudden quick spurts.

No barriers between them. Salty. Slightly bitter. He swallowed greedily, making that part of John a part of him. Finally, let go gently. Tenderly. Longing to stroke his hands along John's skin. Realizing that there was no reason not to do so. Not really. John could not see where skin touched skin. He retained the barrier where hard light was simulating clothing, but where his hands touched John's skin, he removed what was unnecessary.

_Except the primary reason. The one where he should not be going deeper in._

_Yet, perhaps the way out was more. Drown need. Feed touch until hunger was gone._

A whisper and it was done. Sherlock's hands brushing along the contrasting textures of John's skin. The fine hair. Crawled up to kiss his belly. To pluck at more bone buttons. Smooth and slick. Soft linen that he pushed aside. Suckled nipples into rosy peaks. Wrapped his arms around John. Curled against John.

John slid his fingers over and over through Sherlock's curls. Still feeling only hard light. His smile not reaching his eyes. John said, "You're not allowed to leave me like that."

Sherlock hated to repeat himself, but perhaps Captain Sherlock's ghost, did not. He said, "Even if I'm dead, I'll come back to you."

John laughed. "Somehow I think you would. The real you."

Sherlock said simply, "I am the real me."  Not because he wanted John to observe.

Because he wanted John to know.


	6. John POV

Whatever upgrades Sherlock – actual Sherlock – had been making to the holodeck were amazing. John wrapped his legs around his holographic Sherlock of the evening. Whispered, "I need to see all of you." It occurred to him he might need to be more specific, but upgraded holographic Sherlock appeared to understand – nice detail that he could just blink and he was naked – and there was a translucent and ghostly cock pointing right at him.

Suddenly, John didn't want this reminder of what had happened. He'd selected this scenario so he could say what it really wasn't fair to say to the actual Sherlock. But now, seeing him bare and defenseless against the void, he wanted him solid in his arms. "Computer, remove translucence and glow."

Another blink, an almost shocked expression, then Sherlock was simply Sherlock. No ghost. His skin warm under John's hands. Firm. Lovely. John wanted more. He enjoying the feeling of skin shifting against skin. A definite improvement to the program. John could almost imagine the actual oils of an alpha, of Sherlock, rubbing into his waiting omega skin.

He had to taste those ridiculous full lips. They tasted slightly salty. Slightly bitter. Like sea water. Ran his hands over the strong line of Sherlock's chest to the upper curve of his buttocks. Sherlock's cock was blazingly hot against John's belly. He didn't want that lovely cock against his belly. He wriggled back further, more delicious drag of skin on skin, until he had that cock almost where he wanted it. Had his hands where he wanted them, on a lovely rounded arse, and squeezed.

Sherlock's sea change eyes widened. He looked down and oddly asked, "Are you sure?"

John was very sure that he needed a good hard fuck by a gorgeous cock. Never mind that cock was attached to the image of his best friend, who wasn't interested in this sort of transport only nonsense. "Fuck me already." Normally, this would be when the hologram thrust right in, but this time Sherlock was tentative. Teasing with the tip of his cock. Gasped, "You're so wet." A little further. "Tight."

Fortunate, because for some reason John could swear that this version of Sherlock was just a bit thicker. The slow slide gave John time to adjust. To shift his hips. To breath, as Sherlock pulled out and thrust in again.

It took John a moment to realize that he was being fucked to the crashing of the waves outside. He tilted his head back and laughed and got lips tasting his neck for his sins. Wonderful lips. Wonderful cock. Waves shifting and surging. Hands on his hips shifting him until Sherlock's cockhead raked over his Graffenberg spot.

John gasped, fingers digging in a way that would have hurt if this was a real person. 

Sherlock gave up being the sea. Became the sailor diving at that perfect spot. Hips slapping against thighs as he went balls deep inside. As his knot, that gorgeous, wonderful knot, swelled. Hurting so good. Until with a shout, he suddenly locked them together. Triggering the sea inside John, or at least the waves. His own orgasm gripping and squeezing that lovely cock coming inside him.

The air was thick with alpha musk. The raw scent of sex. John could actually feel that slightly light headed feeling he'd get if the hormones in the cum from an actual alpha cock were flooding into him. All turned to eleven. Not just any alpha. Sherlock. He felt rosy. Glowing. Good. Healthy. Flying. Coming, muscles squeezing to get more of that good stuff deep inside him.

He murmured hazily, "I love this upgrade," and earned himself a kiss. A dozen light kisses. Tastes really in-between orgasms.

He stroked a sweat slicked back – another nice touch – and sighed happily. Even when the knot finally released them. He said, "I really needed that."

"I… did too," said Sherlock looking more than a little lost and shocked. Like a little boy, which given the last hour made John laugh, and given he couldn't exactly hurt a hologram's feelings, he laughed while wrapping his arms and legs around Sherlock for an octopus hug, which was returned. A murmur, a hum really, against his shoulder, but no words. When John let go, he swung his feet around and sat up.

His time had to be almost up. 

When he turned around, Sherlock had disappeared, which was a bit of a disappointment, but he had asked for the Ghost and Mr. Muir.

John told the room, "Same time next week."

He wasn't expecting a reply, but got the soft answer, "I won't be able to stay away."

John pulled his kit together and left feeling utterly amazing.


	7. Sherlock POV

Sherlock felt terrible.

He should not have done that.

He absolutely should not have done that.

Because having done that, he did not want to stop doing it.

Which was going to be a bit of a problem, because eventually John would find out.

_"He's not terribly perceptive." "Multiple clues: pheromones, skin oil, Sherlock's complete inability to hide his expression as pushed inside John's slick silk, velvet, soft, surrounding, overwhelming, omega contact high. His post coital expression…_

Sherlock stopped the list.

He could stop and he would go back to sitting in his corner or not attending these moments at all.

Unlikely, but theoretically possible.

It was also possible, as this was an animalistic, instinctual response based on a desire to procreate that after multiple unsuccessful applications of stimuli he would cease to desire to curl around John. To taste every centimeter of his skin. To nip at the tender scent glands where his neck joined his shoulder. To test whether the space behind his ears. His knees. Nipples. Pelvis. Were as sensitive. As responsive as Sherlock's conjecture thought they were.

Surely, once he'd done a thorough analysis, he'd no longer desire to explore these things.

Although, his mind shied away from the corollary of John's disinterest.

His mind spun multiple ways in which the holographic projection could be altered to fit other scenarios. It really was unfortunate that it couldn't be combined with interphasic energy.

Although…Sherlock stood there in the now empty holodeck, naked, and had a really interesting idea.

In addition to the overwhelming desire to do what he'd just done, again and often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Gint  
> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tritanium  
> http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Tholian_Web_(episode)


End file.
